Rent The Debt (2010)

When the past catches up with the present in a tense thriller - The Debt review by Philip in Paradiso

The film is a thriller constructed around 2 story lines that converge as the movie develops: one storyline relates to the past (the mid-1960s in East Berlin), and the other storyline relates to the present (1997 in Tel Aviv). This is a relatively complex structure, as the 2 storylines are interspersed, but the film works well.

In 1965, Rachel Singer (Jessica Chastain), a young Mossad agent, is on her first assignment in the field. She arrives in East Berlin (in East Germany) to meet 2 fellow Israeli agents who are more experienced than she is: David Peretz and Stefan Gold. Their mission is to capture Dieter Vogel, a Nazi war criminal who has been practising medicine in East Germany. Vogel is known as "The Surgeon of Birkenau", the extermination camp, where he carried out medical experiments on Jews during World War II. The 3 agents must bring him to justice in Israel. In 1997, Rachel (Helen Mirren) attends a party with her daughter, Sarah, in Tel Aviv, held because of the launch of Sarah's book, which is based on the account of the events of 1965 that Rachel, Stefan and David gave upon their return to Israel.

As the film develops, the past catches up with the present. It is an intelligent film, full of tension and suspense, which is quite subtle in many ways, while exploring notions of guilt, integrity, morality, justice and retribution. The characters are not cardboard cutouts as could have been the case. The actors are all very good and convincing. The movie has pace and suspense, without indulging in clichés. A key question the film asks is: What is the truth, and does it matter as much as we think? A very good film I would recommend.

Weak - The Debt review by MS

Good cast. Very weak in both plot, script, direction etc. Very disappointing. Could barely stay awake to watch it to the end.

Good Solid Cold War Thriller - The Debt review by GI

This intriguing espionage thriller pivots around a central plot twist which once revealed causes the film to lose it's tension but it does still remain a great Cold War spy story and boasts a first class cast. The film starts in 1997 when the daughter of former Mossad agents Rachel (Helen Mirren) and Stephan (Tom Wilkinson) has published a book detailing a mission that her parents were a part of thirty years earlier and from which they were hailed as heroes along with a third agent, David (Ciarán Hinds). The mission was in East Berlin where the three spies were to trace and abduct a former Nazi and get him back to Israel to stand trial. What actually happened on the mission is a dark secret that the three agents have kept to themselves but the new book opens up old wounds and the truth might get revealed. The story flashes mainly between the two timelines of the mission in 1966 and 1997. The three agents are played in the earlier time by Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas and Sam Worthington. The narrative focuses on the relationship between the three and the mind games that are played out with the Nazi (Jesper Christensen). It is a riveting story and well structured. Not an action film although violence does rear its head but a good, solid thriller that is worth seeking out if you've not seen it and worth a revisit if its been awhile.